skills
Latest
EVE Evolved: Top five EVE Online apps
Back in 2004, a friend introduced me to a relatively new space MMO called EVE Online, where the markets were run by the players and there were undiscovered frontiers to chart. A short time after, I became obsessed with pre-calculating everything in the game. I thought that if the game server can calculate everything we do, I must be able to replicate the process and come up with some interesting results. I wasn't alone, many other pilots had previously created simple spreadsheets and web-databases of EVE's items. Rather than the game's developers hoarding the information required for such an undertaking, they took an unusual stance and released large portions of their main database for player-study. Websites began popping up listing information from the data dumps and it wasn't long before the first pioneering apps came about in the form of handy spreadsheets and interactive web-pages, my own fairly popular tanking spreadsheet among them. In this article, I look at how player-developed apps came about in EVE and give details on my top five EVE apps. Once you've tried these programs, you won't know how you lived without them.
The Daze of Darkfall week 2: AFK your way to fame and fortune pt. 2
Battles abound and a city under siegeOut in the wilderness with my clan, we wreaked havoc on newbie towns. Oddly enough, an unarmored newbie weapon carrying player is no match for four people in chain armor wielding crafted weapons. Who would have thought? Also, if you're AFK and auto-harvesting something, you suck at PvP. Just letting you know.In all of this madness, however, my party was lucky enough to stumble upon a person farming herbs. She too was AFK and felt our wrath, but what made this encounter so absolutely hilarious was the presence of a steedgrass on her person. One steedgrass lets you call a mount, so we effectively denied her a mount. Whoops.If that's not painful enough, another one of my colleagues reported that he had killed an AFK newbie, only to find a deed to a cottage on their corpse. He had just stolen a house from someone AFK. A house. I bet you never stole an entire house before.Later on that night though, I got my first real taste of PvP action. One of our members yelled that he spied an incoming force of about 15-20 people to our city, causing everyone to quickly rally. Of course, when I say "rally" I mean everyone stripped their armor and pulled out their staves. (Yes, I too feel as if I live in bizarro world.)As they ran up the side of our city, we began pummeling them with magic missles. I have to admit, the sight was pretty awesome to behold. 25-30 people all casting magic missiles at the enemy as they rode towards us on mounts was pretty fun. I can only imagine what it was like from their perspective, looking up to see this wave of blue bubbles flying at their mounts.Once they reached the city, however, everyone did what they could... while naked... to defend what we had. It wasn't a serious defense, as they didn't have a challenge against us for the city, so many deaths while naked were had. If we had been out somewhere, sure, we would have been wearing armor. But when someone comes in to our city trying to get stuff from our bodies, why give them the pleasure?It's at this point that I'd like to say we drove the enemy away with the stalwart defense of our territory, but it really came down to them getting bored killing naked people. Who can blame them, especially when we killed one or two of their people. We lost nothing (except our pride) but we gained everything (and by everything I mean two sets of armor and weaponry.) What lies in wait for next week? Things are starting to get heated in the clan. The generals want everyone combat ready, including the crafters. Plans are being created, swords are being sharpened, and our evil scowling practice is really coming to fruition. (No one can deny that the evil scowl is absolutely essential in battle.) This week looks like it's going to be a week of blood, and I'll make sure to report all of the lost limbs to you faithful readers next week.No time to go searching? Check out week 1 and week 3 without digging through the category!
The Daze of Darkfall week 2: AFK your way to fame and fortune
Confused as to why this isn't in Anti-Aliased? Well, "The Daze of Darkfall" month long feature has moved to a new home as a standalone feature! Isn't that grand? Now I can talk about my adventures in Darkfall while still unleashing my biased opinions upon you in Anti-Aliased. It's a win/win situation, if you ask me.So what's in the picture above? Well that's me AFKing my way to hardcore status in Darkfall. All you need is an old college textbook and a comb cleverly placed on your left arrow key and you too can get to max run skill with just a few nights of AFKing! Forget running into walls, this is the future! I like to call it "hardware macroing."But this isn't all, dear readers! I have lots more fun inside of this week's Darkfall report! Come, continue reading and enjoy the insanity of Agon, where AFKing is better than playing and naked is the new armored!
EVE Evolved: Mission-running top five tips
In the first two parts of this guide on mission-running in EVE Online, I explained the basics of mission-running and went on to give a race-by-race breakdown of the most popular mission-running ships. In this final instalment of the EVE Evolved mission-running guide, I dig up my top five tips and tricks for improving your standings, mission-running speed and general mission income in EVE. Tip #1 - Gaining faction standing As high faction standing unlocks the agents of every corp in an entire faction rather than just from one corp, faction standing gains are very desirable and often the ultimate goal of early mission-running. In addition to a few other methods discussed later in this article, faction standing gains can be had from COSMOS missions. These are special once-only missions, like quests in the standard MMO paradigm. They are given out by special agents-in-space located within EVE's COSMOS constellations, some at designated agent sites and some hidden away at moons or sites only able to be found with probes. Each of these missions counts as an important mission for the purposes of faction standing gains and their rewards can be extremely good. Using COSMOS missions, it's possible to boost your faction standings from around 4 to up to 6 or 8 in some of these areas. Read on as I give my top five mission-running tips to maximise your income from mission-running.
E3 2009: Global Agenda hands-on with executive producer Todd Harris
Global Agenda is coming right along nicely -- we last saw the game in action at GDC, and today at E3, executive producer Todd Harris was nice enough to sit down and show us a never-before-seen part of the game: PvE gameplay.We started off by checking out the character creator, which has come along quite a bit. They've built a very in-depth face creator -- there are about eight or ten different factors to switch between (eyes, mouth, and so on), and for each one, there are seven or eight sliders to adjust and tweak. Which allows for quite a few different variations, as you might imagine. Hair and skin color can also be edited, but Harris told us that body shape will generally be determined by the armor you wear (which is more or less determined by the class you choose).%Gallery-35351% Massively is on the ground in Los Angeles this week and covering all the latest E3 MMO news coming from the convention. Check out our breaking coverage (or all the Joystiq network E3 reporting) and keep your eye on Massively's front page for the latest developments.
Earthrise devs shed some light on skill advancement
The latest bit of info we've come across about the upcoming post-apocalyptic MMO Earthrise sheds some more light on how skill advancement will work in the game. We've known that Earthrise will have a mix of both online and offline character advancement. The Masthead Studios response to the latest Question of the Week regarding skills, via Earthrise community manager Moll, explains their approach to progression. Moll writes: "Skills improvement is one of the pinnacles of Earthrise's sandbox gameplay. Players in Earthrise will gain skill points by killing monsters and completing quests. Those skill points can be invested in abilities, which are used in combat. The abilities interface dialog is interactive with options to buy and combine abilities by using tactics." Beyond this system of combining abilities Moll also writes that players won't be limited in terms of their skill choices and that a player can choose any skills in the game, in addition to combining all types of abilities into tactics. Moll says, "The skill advancement system is easy to learn and offers numerous possibilities for character customization, much more than many other games on the market." You can find the Question of the Week and feedback from the Earthrise community on the game's official forums.
The Daily Grind: Have MMOs given you skills you can use in real life?
We all know computer games aren't just about killing things, racing cars or 'improving your hand-eye coordination' (which was the one I used as a kid and, to be fair, mine is really bad). However MMOs are not just any computer game, they can also teach you a specific set of interesting skills and no, I don't mean transforming your boss/parent/teacher/sibling into an elite boss on an enrage timer who has to be downed within five minutes or all hell breaks loose.For example, since entering Azeroth, I've learnt tactical battle plans to the point where I can command a raid of multilingual, bickering humans to win Wintergrasp or down a giant monster, I've learnt to co-exist better with (albeit virtual representations of) people, I've learnt AH skills which allow me to make money from nothing and, possibly the most important thing, I've learnt to be patient (thanks in part to fishing). This doesn't matter if it's relating to grinding for a new DVD boxset or a holiday, patience is vital. Many of these skills can easily be transferred to real life. So, readers, what skills has your favourite MMO taught you that you use in real life?
MMOs as team building exercise?
It's not the first time we've heard that MMO gamers might be a force in the workplace, but the American Society of Training and Development's webzine, Training + Development, has added to the viability of the MMO gamer in the workforce.Their article, "Slash, Burn, and Learn", focuses on how MMOs closely mimic team building exercises through their game design. Players are encouraged to progress through the game by solving challenges, only to be presented with harder challenges to solve as the game continues onwards. Certainly rewards provide incentive to keep plugging away at hard challenges, but players also learn how to manage personnel and look for diversity in the team to make sure all aspects of combat are accounted for. Players even submit to optional performance reviews just to see how much they've improved over time.The article provides an interesting read and shows many of the parallels between raid management and workplace skills. While not every MMO player will gain all of these benefits, it is amusing to see how much our games sometimes parallel our lives in more ways than one.
Capsuleer 2.0 for iPhone helps you track EVE Online status
Massively has a good look at an iPhone app that's a must-have for players of the space-based multiplayer EVE Online -- Capsuleer 2.0 isn't an actual client, but like the desktop app EVEMon, it allows you to monitor and track your EVE pilots from outside the game. It's also got skill queues built in (unlike other MMOs, EVE allows you to have your pilots level even while you're away from the game, so most of the strategy in leveling actually comes in choosing the next skill to work towards), a skill library, more pilot details, and even a mini-RSS feeder, incorporating a few popular blogs from around the EVE blogosphere.The two developers of the app tell Massively that their biggest issues in developing the app were mostly by way of the limits CCP (the company behind EVE Online) places on what third-party apps can do with their info.. Most of the things they can't do are built into the game itself, and so it makes sense that a certain amount of functionality can't leave the game client (or else people might never log into the game). The app is currently free in the App Store right now, and the devs aim to keep it that way, but just recently added ads to the mix from the game's official magazine to cover server costs and bandwidth.Finally, they say they're excited about the possibilities with iPhone 3.0 -- notifications are mentioned, and of course it would be cool to get a popup reminder every time a pilot is about to hit a skill. They're also working on a way to provide stats about the ingame Faction Warfare. Sounds cool -- EVE Tracker is still another possibility if you want to follow your EVE progress on the iPhone, but it looks like Capsuleer adds even more innovation to the mix.
Earthrise videos show game mechanics and zones
The post-apocalyptic MMO title Earthrise from Masthead Studios has caught our attention, perhaps even moreso since we heard of their involvement with the much-rumored Fallout MMO. Massively ran a fairly comprehensive look at Earthrise from our meeting with them at GDC 2009 and the game seems to be coming along rather well in terms of development. We came across something else interesting today over at MMORPG.com that might interest our readers. Masthead Studios CEO Atanas Atanasov gave MMORPG.com a demo of Earthrise which they captured in video in two parts.The first video introduces some of the core aspects of playing Earthrise, with the system of skills, abilities, tactics, and stances explained briefly while moving about in a starter zone. The second bit of in-game footage focuses on Earthrise's zones. It shows off the contrast between the utopian Eastern Gardens and a devastated region, once a city and now a buffer between the game's civilized areas and the wasteland. Both videos are worth checking out over at MMORPG.com.
Massively looks at Capsuleer 2.0, an iPhone app for EVE Online part 2
I was dreading having to manually enter that long API string linked to my EVE account, but Capsuleer's system made it quite easy. Can you tell me about the Import Control System?Roc: The Import Control System was Sam's brainchild. Nobody wants to manually enter that string, myself included, but I also don't like applications "scraping" my game login data from the EVE Online website. The entire point of an API is to be able to access it without using your game login credentials. Since the iPhone doesn't do copy/paste (prior to OS 3.0), Sam came up with this method for effortlessly and securely importing your data to your device.Sam: As Roc said, the API is all about security. CCP introduced it so that 3rd party applications didn't need your username and password anymore. It's a secure and simple way to provide access to a limited subset of data without exposing the credentials needed to log into your account. My initial prototype had you typing in the big long API key, and man I don't think I got it right more than twice in a row. I knew that we needed a better alternative. That's when I came up with the Import Control System. We have been foiled a bit by a few email clients that don't like the evechar:// url syntax that we use (they try to validate it and can't because they don't recognize the prefix), but with 2.0 we have an alternative http:// based url that can be used as well, so that should hopefully clear up the issues that people ran into.
GDC09: Massively previews Earthrise
The futuristic game Earthrise is one of the upcoming sci-fi massively multiplayer games that we can see on the horizon. It's the first MMO developed by Sofia-based Masthead Studios and features the post-apocalyptic setting of a world divided between utopian idealism and revolution. Massively had a chance to sit down with Masthead Studios CEO Atanas Atanasov at the Game Developers Conference 2009 where he gave us a walkthrough of Earthrise, shedding some light on what this new title may bring to the MMO world.%Gallery-48760%
Ether Saga Online enters open beta
If you need a game that's sugary and saccharin-y cute to the point of inducing cavities via the internet, then look no further than Ether Saga Online, the latest game from the people who brought you Perfect World International.Ether Saga has just entered their open public beta, meaning you can mosey on over to the website and sign up to try the game. Like Perfect World, Ether Saga will be a free to play game, supported by the usual cash transactions from an item shop.The game does have some interesting features, including the ability to level up your character's affinity to the various elements in the game, adding a new dimension to each class beyond how the class normally functions. Past that, skills can be learned on the fly in the field without the need to visit a trainer, and characters get skills relating to their "birthday," the day of the week that they were born.For all the information about Ether Saga Online, check out their website at http://eso.perfectworld.com.
Massively's EVE Online Apocrypha expansion hands-on
var digg_url = 'http://massively.joystiq.com/2009/03/06/massivelys-eve-online-apocrypha-expansion-hands-on/'; Massively got word that EVE Online lead game designer Noah Ward, aka CCP Hammerhead, would be in New York City last week. We jumped at the chance to find out more about the Apocrypha expansion, and Ward was kind enough to give us our own hands-on demo while answering our questions about where EVE Online is heading. We were pleasantly surprised to find that EVE's lead writer Tony Gonzales was on hand as well. Fans of the game's backstory will know him for writing The Empyrean Age novel, which chronicled the events leading up to New Eden's factional warfare. Apocrypha will be the most significant expansion in EVE's history to date, introducing new -- and some controversial -- features while revamping existing aspects of the game. Ultimately the aim of CCP Games with Apocrypha is to make EVE accessible to more gamers while adding depth for the existing playerbase. The Apocrypha expansion launch will coincide with EVE Online's retail release on March 10th. Leading up to that date, a number of the CCP developers have dropped info about what's on the way through dev blogs and the occasional interview, but the expansion seen as a whole is mind-blowing. What we have for you here is the most complete look at the Apocrypha expansion offered to date, in one place, and much of it from the developers themselves. We've tackled Apocrypha in four parts: the New Player Experience, Epic Mission Arcs & Tech III, True Exploration, and the Sleepers.Strap yourself in and get ready for Massively's exclusive hands-on with the Apocrypha expansion for EVE Online.%Gallery-47038%
The lowdown on EVE Online's New Player Experience
Among all the massively multiplayer online games out there, with their respective learning curves, EVE Online perhaps has the deserved reputation for being the hardest MMO to get a grasp of. Much of that confusion is because the game itself is such a departure from your standard fantasy MMO, in almost every respect: open world/single server, PvP can happen everywhere, a harsh setting, and a UI that's a far cry from anything a player has seen in World of Warcraft.The EVE in-game tutorial has been revamped a few times in order to make it easier for new players to get a handle on things. What is currently offered is a noticeable improvement over the tutorial of a few years ago, but CCP Games is in the process of completely reworking a player's first steps into the game's setting of New Eden. EVE Online developer CCP Fear's latest blog is, in his words, required reading for anyone interested in the game, new player or not. He says, "I want to get one misconception out of the way. This blog *will* concern you and everyone else. If you have played for a year, 6 years, 3 months or a week, you will want to read further than this. Chances are there will be changes that will affect you!"
Brawling changes hit Pirates of the Burning Sea
Pirates of the Burning Sea is a title that's been undergoing some major overhauls in terms of game mechanics. Flying Lab Software has been revamping the game's combat systems, both those of ship-based combat and avatar combat. We've mentioned a few of those changes in the past, such as the introduction of new NPC archetypes but the latest issue they've been tackling is how brawling works in PotBS.A developer log this week, from Isildur, explains the situation with skill lines (as well as optional skill lines) and what was involved with balancing them. The challenge was in creating a system where a given skill line wouldn't be mandatory, giving players choices in how they approach combat, yet keeping each skill line powerful enough that it can remain effective against other combat styles.
Long-awaited skill queue coming to EVE Online
The sci-fi massively multiplayer online game EVE Online stands apart from other games in the industry in several ways, one of which is that it uses a real time skill training system rather than experience-based advancement. This is a feature many players like, as they're able to advance even when they're offline, but the downside is that you need to log in frequently to change the lower levels of skills (due to how quickly they finish.) For anyone who's bothered with it, actually getting up for 4am skill changes? Not cool. Getting a skill queue is one of the issues that the player-elected Council of Stellar Management (CSM) brought to the game's developers, CCP Games. (The CSM are representatives of the player base that work with the devs to ensure that development reflects what EVE's subscribers really want from the game.) Apparently the message got through loud and clear. EVE Game Designer Eris Discordia announced today that a skill queue is indeed in the works, in her dev blog "More Queue Queue."
Anti-Aliased: Top 5 things MMOs should learn in the new year pt. 2
#2 -- Balance microtransactions with game content.Real money trade (RMT) was big news this year. The rise of the microtransaction model was on everyone's lips. I'm not calling for a death-knell of subscription fees or anything (I like the predictability of the subscription system; I know how much I'm going to pay) but I am saying that microtransactions need to be carefully monitored. "Just remember the first rule of actually having an avatar in an online space -- people want to look cool above everything else." This writer's suggestion: cosmetic pieces. The item doesn't have to do something to make people love it. Take some hints from Gaia Online, Mabinogi, and City of Heroes. Their models have proven that people will pay for things -- awesome abilities or not. Just remember the first rule of actually having an avatar in an online space -- people want to look cool above everything else.Many people may not agree with John Smedley on everything he says, but he's dead on the money with ideas like character action figures, guild calendars and pictures, and posters with your character on it and the official branding. Those items are amazing concepts, easy to produce, and a great way for an alternate revenue stream to flow into your company.#1 -- "Kill/Quest, Level" concept is a dead horse, get on with it already!Yes! Get on with it! This is, without a doubt, in my mind, the biggest failure of the industry today. We're following along a solved formula, and it's shooting this industry in the foot. Player needs to level, player completes quests and kills monsters, player reaches next level, player gets new abilities, player uses abilities to go complete quests and kill monsters, et cetera.We keep asking the question, "Why don't these new games seem like they're as good?" And then we begin this in-depth analysis and begin checking every aspect of the game to find out why this feels like we've done it all before. The answer is taking a step back, looking at the model and exclaiming aloud, "Holy heck in a handwoven handkerchief, we have done this before!"The reason we keep playing single player games is because each one has it's own twist on the core formula. Couple that with the story and personal experience, and you get a great game. Our MMO industry needs to learn this fact this year -- not next year. The quest/kill, level, quest/kill model has been done and overdone. Gameplay needs to expand past this. Even reputation grinding is nothing more than the quest/kill to level system. "The quest/kill, level, quest/kill model has been done and overdone." One game that has been taking off faster than a warp drive engine has been EVE Online, because it has broken from this methodology. Before you begin your complaints, yes, the grinding system is there. Doing missions to get money is the quest/kill system. What makes EVE different and attractive is that this system is not the core of the gameplay -- it is a tangent of that play. The gameplay centers around the tools offered to let users shape and mold the universe according to their wishes. Money is a requirement, but it does not only come from mining and missions; it can come from basically anything you can twist to make money. If you can dream it you can probably do it in EVE -- that's the magic. This is why EVE is simply one of the best MMOs you can wrap your hands around.2009 has a chance to be something special. With titles like Jumpgate Evolution, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and Darkfall Online coming at us, this should be a very good year. Colin Brennan is the weekly writer of Anti-Aliased who remembered Darkfall before the rabid comment fans ripped him apart for not mentioning it. When he's not writing here for Massively, he's over running Epic Loot For All! with his insane roommates. If you want to message him, send him an e-mail at colin.brennan AT weblogsinc DOT com.
Gaming promotes life skills according to IBM exec
Gamers have become something of a stereotype in recent times. In everything from the job market to South Park, players are perceived as nerdy, pimply-faced, basement-dwellers with no social skills who do nothing outside of work other than play the game of their choosing. But now we have some pretty high-level defense of our beloved past-time.David Laux, head of games and interactive entertainment at IBM, has listed a myriad of positive skills gained by gamers from the problems they must face and overcome. Specifically mentioned is teaming in World of Warcraft as it emphasizes building diverse teams to accomplish tasks. It's certainly a breath of fresh air to hear such reassurances from someone in the capacity to hire.
The Daily Grind: Should leveling be removed?
We complain about how long it is, we complain about how short it is. We complain because it's in the game and we even complain when it's not in the game. Some believe it makes more problems, others believe it's the best solution we can insert into a game. What are we talking about? Leveling -- that's what we're talking about.In almost every shape and form, we find a reason to hate the leveling systems we have in place in so many games today. So, the question has to be raised: Should we just ditch levels and go find something else? Skills seem to work in games like EVE Online, and there exists a possibility of using items as a faux leveling system. But, Massively readers, what do you think about levels? Should they be kept or should they be thrown out on their behinds with all of their content-crushing luggage? And if we're throwing them out, what could we use to replace them, in your opinion?
